HOW TO GET STRONG
And rightly does he refer to America's respect and love for Tom Brown of Rugby. What other hand, American or British, has ever so read a boy's mind; so seen with a boy's own eyes; so touched his heart; so traced his course on from boyhood to manhood; with all its doubts and vexations and disappointments; its pleasures and hopes and fears; its eager ambition, of which he seldom speaks, to one day be somebody himself? That fight of Tom with big Slogger Williams for bullying little Arthur Stanley touched a chord responsive in a million hearts. No manly man or boy likes a bully. But they love him who faces one—bigger than himself—and fights him to a finish. And they love him even more when, in the temptations that come to all boys at times to go wrong, he won't go—and doesn't go. Sturdy splendid John Hardy—a strong all-round man, morally, mentally, and physically—was Tom's best teacher. And he has had hundreds of thousands of other willing pupils too. "Tom" told the writer once that he had two men in mind whom he fused into a Hardy. What a grand thing it would be for every boy to have one such a friend! And once, when a boxing-master was bullying his pupil, the story goes that "Tom" asked the former to let a stranger put them on; and, on the favor being granted, thrashed him soundly, a good lesson.
SIR JOSEPH CHITTY
392
